Neck Romancing, Swamplanding and the ARTS of Ben.

Benjamin Paskins comes from a Graphic Design background. Likes to illustrate colourful explosions of weird shit. Makes up bands and draws them in  watercolour awesomeness.

Hollerin' from the Sunshine Coast, He makes art to sell, including  bringing you a wide array of colourful stickers, prints, original paintings and illustrations and pretty much anything you can print on.

Ben is  also co-owner of the Sunshine Coast institution The Time Machine and is responsible for the Zine SWAMPLANDS. Its a cool little publication that aims to embrace creative Australian small business. Music/art/fun times.

Here is a little bit of what Ben has said about the Zine.

 

Swamplands Issue one







Issue one of Swamplands hot off the press



A little while back I applied for a Small Creative Government grant, not thinking I was going to get it, just for practise really. It was to fund the printing for a zine (a small independent publication) for promoting creativity, embracing D.I.Y culture and whole-heartedly supporting Australian Independents. Funnily enough, we actually got the funding for it. Which is great! Except now I have made... more work for myself and now have to put it together". 

The first issue was  primarily focussed on his little town, Nambour, and its inhabitants. Its primary focus was to lift the terrible stigma and reputation Nambour has, whilst networking the Independent businesses to try and work together and you know, be nice to one  another.

"the main aim was  to bridge the gap between other suburbs on The Sunshine Coast, to try and work together to get a whole bunch of things to do organizsed 'round here parts. It will also have profiles on a bunch of bands/artists and articles on varying topics to make it a bloody good read, eh? Also to show people the potential Nambour has at being the Arts/Music Hub of the Sunshine Coast".

To find out more about Swampland here

Artwork illustration and other oddities. Benjamin Paskins

Neck Romancer.: SHURTS.: benpaskins@hotmail.com



Shirt Designs contact ben directly for custom orders



 

A selection of weird from Ben



The Time Machine

The Killing Machine

“The Killing Machine,” formerly known as “Icarus,” is yet another ultra-violent movie starring Dolph Lundgren, who also directed -- but he didn’t work on the screenplay this time around. Dolph has directed quite a few movies lately, of which “Command Performance” was an unusually successful D2DVD actioner.

The movies directed by the Big Swede himself always have one thing in common--they’re extremely violent! They can almost compete with Steven Seagal when it comes to gruesome splatter. More than one of Dolph’s latest movies ends with him blowing the head of the main bad guy off with a shotgun. The big difference is that Dolph is a sympathetic guy, while Seagal comes out as a sadist.

“The Killing Machine” is exceptionally violent. Dolph plays mild-mannered businessman Edward Genn, always sporting suits. He’s divorced from his wife, with whom he has a little daughter, he has a new girlfriend (but you can tell he still loves his former wife), and he’s quit smoking, something that doesn’t prevent him from putting a cigarette in his mouth every now and then -- but he never lights it.

However ... Mister Genn is leading a double life. Edward Genn isn’t his real name. He’s former KGB agent Icarus, and he still works as a hitman for the Russian mob to make money. He’s elegant, he’s professional, and he kills people. Dozens of people. Hundreds. Some are into scrapbooking; Edward Genn kills people.

Then one day it turns out there’s a contract on Edward, and loads of people try to take him out. They blow his girlfriend up! Something that really pisses Edward off. He tries to protect his former wife (her new boyfriend is killed) and their little daughter, but everybody they trust is dirty. So Edward simply has to kill everybody in sight. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

The Worlds Most EVIL art Part 1

Write a book or paint a painting, and who knows whether it'll still be around a few years later. But build a goddamned 100-ton bronze statue, and people will still be staring at that shit centuries from now. Which makes it all the more awesome when a sculptor creates a horrifying monument to his own insanity and gets it erected in city park or town square

El Mesteno

Denver Internation Airport (DIA), Colorado, United States

 

The Denver International Airport has something no other airport in the world has. Or, for that matter, wants. It's a statue of a horse called El Mesteno, and its demonic gaze is the very first thing greeting you when you step out of the airport building:


I'm assuming that if you look on the ground behind this fucker, you'll see that Satan has gotten thrown off his steed. The first time you lay eyes upon El Mesteno, you lose all doubt that Lucifer's mighty steed has broken lose of its hell-dimension paddock and is running amock in the world of mere mortals. This is no simple horse statue. El Mesteno has more furious personality in his left front hoof than any iconic statue of George Washington on his noble mount. This mustang looks angry, from his bulging veins and flared nostrils right down to his violent rearing pose. Hey, did I mention that it's 32 feet tall?

El Mesteno, or "oh shit run it's the giant zombie hell horse" as it is more affectionately known, is the gatekeeper between you and Denver, and the price for getting any further is your soul. Which it incidentally took the second it laid those eyes on you, so you now have nothing to bargain with.

I'm thinking the people in charge of erecting El Mesteno probably should've taken the hint that this creepy ass beast was bad news, cause it's kinda  hard to ignore the bad omens that came with El Mesteno's creation. Particulary the fact that a large portion of the heavy statue fell on the artist Jimenez while it was being moved, fatally crushing him. That's right: The zombie horse of DIA killed its own sculptor, making  El Mesteno  both Jimenez's largest and last work of art.

But what does the zombie horse of DIA mean? Is it in fact a symbol of power and strength, warding off any evil that would seek to enter Denver through its major transportation hub? Or is it something darker? Insert conspiracy theories about DIA here, which there are fricken heaps, but I'll get into those in a later post.